#The Boulting brothers

[mostlybritishactors]

The Boulting brothers

[missanthropicprinciple]

Terry-Thomas | selected filmography + PSAs | 1936-1966

Once in a Million 1936

It's Love Again 1936

For Freedom 1940

Under Your Hat 1940

If You Don't Save Paper (PSA) 1948

Copy Book Please (PSA) 1948

A Date with a Dream 1948

The Brass Monkey 1948

Helter Skelter 1949

Melody Club 1949

What's Cooking? (PSA) 1951

Private's Progress 1956

The Green Man 1956

Brothers in Law 1956

Lucky Jim 1957

The Naked Truth 1957

Blue Murder at St Trinian's 1957

Happy Is the Bride 1958

Too Many Crooks 1959

Carlton-Browne of the F.O. 1959

I'm All Right Jack 1959

School for Scoundrels 1960

Make Mine Mink 1960

A Matter of WHO 1961

Bachelor Flat 1962

Kill or Cure 1962

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World 1963

How to Murder Your Wife 1965

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines 1965

La Grande Vadrouille 1966

[mad-prophet-of-the-airwaves]

I'm not sure how the "Twisted Nerve" theme ended up on the Home Depot playlist, but I'm glad it did.

[gardenschedule]

John not meaning what he says

You know, we all say a lot of things when we don’t know what we’re talking about. I’m probably doing it now, I don’t know what I say. You see, everybody takes you up on the words you said, and I’m just a guy that people ask all about things, and I blab off and some of it makes sense and some of it is bullshit and some of it’s lies and some of it is — God knows what I’m saying. I don’t know what I said about Maharishi, all I know is what we said about Apple, which was worse.

John Lennon: The Rolling Stone Interview, Part One

“It’s sort of complicated but sometimes you say things, but it’s not really what you meant to say. If I say something to you and you hear it different from what I’ve said it, and you answer back and we’re not really getting down to it. I’m really talking like that you know. Like somebody says ‘do you want ice cream?’ and I’ll say no, and actually I meant yes. You find yourself saying the opposite of what you mean. This happens to me quite a lot. I speak a lot, but what I say is not always what I mean.“

John Lennon, 1973.

‘I was told recently by Yoko that one of the things that hurt John over the years was me going off and doing The Family Way,’ Paul says. The filmmaking Boulting brothers had approached him via George Martin. ‘I thought this was a great opportunity. We were all free to do stuff outside the Beatles and we’d each done various little things.’ When he mentioned it to John, Paul said, ‘He would have had his suit of armour on and said: “No, I don’t mind.”

Paul McCartney, c/o Ray Coleman, McCartney: Yesterday and Today. (1995)

But by the time I arrived, an agitated John was deeply involved indeed. More specifically, he was having a row with Paul and George Martin. “We’ve already done the concept album,” he argued, presumably referring to Pepper. “Why do we need to do another one?” “Look, John, we’re just trying to think symphonically,” George replied. “We’re trying to create a complete work out of song fragments.” John was derisive at first, saying, “You’re taking yourselves too seriously,” but when Paul invited him to contribute some compositions of his own to the medley, he seemed to capitulate. “Well, I might have one or two that could fit,” he said sheepishly. I exchanged glances with Paul. I’m sure we were both thinking the same thing: He’s just been waiting to be asked.

Here, There and Everywhere - Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey

SHEFF: But you didn’t compose your stuff separately, as other accounts have said? JOHN: No, no, no. I said that, but I was lying. [Laughs.] By the time I said that, we were so sick of this idea of writing and singing together, especially me, that I started this thing about, “We never wrote together, we were never in the same room.” Which wasn’t true. We wrote a lot of stuff together, one-on-one, eyeball to eyeball.

John Lennon, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

PLAYBOY: "When you talk about working together on a single lyric like "We Can Work It Out,' it suggests that you and Paul worked a lot more closely than you've admitted in the past. Haven't you said that you wrote most of your songs separately, despite putting both of your names on them?" LENNON: "Yeah, I was lying. (laughs) It was when I felt resentful, so I felt that we did everything apart. But, actually, a lot of the songs we did eyeball to eyeball."

John Lennon, 1980

“No, no, no,” he answered and he meant it. “I’m going to be an ex-Beatle for the rest of my life so I might as well enjoy it, and I’m just getting around to being able to stand back and see what happened. A couple of years ago I might have given everybody the impression I hate it all, but that was then. I was talking when I was straight out of therapy and I’d been mentally stripped bare and I just wanted to shoot my mouth off to clear it all away. Now it’s different. “When I slagged off the Beatle thing in the papers, it was like divorce pangs, and me being me it was blast this and fuck that, and it was just like the old days in the Melody Maker, you know, ‘Lennon Blasts Hollies’ on the back page. You know, I’ve always had a bit of a mouth and I’ve got to live up to it. Daily Mirror: ‘Lennon beats up local DJ at Paul’s 21st birthday party’. Then we had that fight Paul and me had through the Melody Maker, but it was a period I had to go through.

John Lennon, interview w/ Ray Coleman for Melody Maker: Lennon – a night in the life. (September 14th, 1974)

GEORGE: I remember the day when John did an interview with a certain magazine and said certain things, and then I remember the day when he disagreed with what he’d said, but the man who interviewed him denied him the right to change his mind and, even though it was two and a half years, later still went ahead and published something which John said he no longer agreed with himself on. Which means the dream was over, yet certain people wouldn’t allow him to have his dream... over. Nudge nudge wink wink, say no more. [inaudible] JOHN: In other words, imagine if somebody or if you accidentally bang your head and you shout, “Ow!” – that’s the end of it. [self-conscious; laughs] Right? GEORGE: And he said that too. JOHN: I mean, it doesn’t go on for the next five years, right? And we all did that.

December 21st, 1974 (New York)

INT: It seem that you did minimize a little bit, what the, what the effect was on the, value and lifestyle and all that. You said that there was almost nothing left of Beatles. JOHN: Well I get bitter too, you know. And uh, also it was always the insistence that the Beatles led something, you know. And if anything they were figureheads, you know. And, I put it more succinctly later on when I thought about it. When I said those statements A) I was bitter and upset; emotionally upset cause we just split up, you know. I call it a divorce right. But when I think about it, obviously…you know, I can change my mind.

John interviewed by Jean-François Vallée in April 1975.

Underground journalist Felix Dennis watched the session. ‘I remember Ringo getting more and more upset by this… I have a clear memory of him saying, “That’s enough, John.”’ Lennon and Ono competed to come up with the most insulting lines, Dennis said. ‘Some of it was absolutely puerile. Thank God a lot of it never actually got recorded because it was highly, highly personal, like a bunch of schoolboys standing in the lavatory making scatological jokes.’ ‘John would forgive himself, and expect Paul to forgive him,’ Derek Taylor recalled.

Peter Doggett, You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles. (2009)

I went through a period of trying to encourage Paul by writing and saying things that I thought would spur him on. But I think they were misunderstood. That's how "How Do You Sleep?" (on the "Imagine" album) was intended. Although I suppose it was a bit hard on him.

John Lennon Talks To Ray Connolly May 18th 1972 Radio Times

“At the moment he is cut off from the three of us. The last time I saw him was in December.” Asked whether he thought John Lennon’s recent unkind references to Paul on his “Imagine” album, had deepened the rift, George replied: “Maybe John felt like that about Paul at the time he was writing the song, but he doesn’t feel like that all the time. The song doesn’t represent what he really feels. It’s just John – people don’t really understand. “I think John’s record is great – though that track about Paul is a bit hard. But it’s only something felt at the time . . . ”

George Harrison, interviewed by Mike Hennessey for Record Mirror (October 16, 1971)

JOHN: (smiles) You know, I wasn’t really feeling that vicious at the time. But I was using my resentment toward Paul to create a song, let’s put it that way. He saw that it pointedly refers to him, and people kept hounding him about it. But, you know, there were a few digs on his album before mine. He’s so obscure other people didn’t notice them, but I heard them. I thought, Well, I’m not obscure, I just get right down to the nitty-gritty. So he’d done it his way and I did it mine. But as to the line you quoted, yeah, I think Paul died creatively, in a way.

John’s Playboy interview as published in the magazine’s January 1981 issue

He turned to me and told me that he had been equally vicious about Paul during the same period and that Paul had got it right when he had declared that the only person John was hurting with his vitriolic behavior was himself. It was not exactly an apology, more like an explanation.

Glyn Johns, Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits with the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces… (2014)

“I have to ask you, what was all that stuff in the telegraph about?... And he’s gone oh yeah, look, speak to Paul about that, I wasn’t in a good place mentally at the time. Just speak to Paul about it…. I thought it was a real cop out because he had hurt me, he’d said something unfair, and rather than just apologise, what he basically said was I’ve apologised to Paul, and Paul’s accepted my apology for for my behaviour in that period, the immediate aftermath of the Beatles, and therefore speak to him and he will explain to you why you should forgive me”.

I am the EggPod guest Sam Delaney talking about a Get Back screening Q&A with Glynn Johns

“I’m trying to be mad at you, but you’re so nice, it isn’t easy,” Glyn replied. Then he explained that he had been upset by John’s comments about him in the “Lennon Remembers” interviews. John had said that Let It Be, which had been re-mixed by Glyn, had wound up sounding awful, and Glyn, a true professional, had been very offended by John’s comments. John did not remember saying it at all and he was very embarrassed. He explained, “I had just done primal therapy. I was just lettin’ off steam. That interview was just a lot of anger.” Glyn stared at John. John’s words had hurt him, and he had never expected that John would not remember what he had said, nor had he perceived that the comments would be dismissed as “just lettin’ off steam.” Like everyone else, he believed everything the public John said and took him very seriously. John repeatedly apologised to Glyn, and eventually the matter was dropped.

Loving John

“John’s most influential interviews, interviews which people took as gospel truth, were for John occasions to blow off steam and then to forget what he had said.”

May Pang, The Lost Weekend

At the time, we at Apple weren’t feeling good anyway, because Apple had failed; and here was one of our friends telling everyone who reads Rolling Stone that we were bastards. In the end we had to say, ‘Well, we’re not.’ John later retracted some of it, and we became friends again. And I forgave him. He would forget he’d said it, and expect to be forgiven, as he always was.

Derek Taylor, interview w/ Peter Doggett for Record Collector. (August, 1988)

John had gone through a tremendous upheaval in his private life, and he was a very odd person at times; he wasn’t at all himself. There was the famous interview he did for Rolling Stone, which has been reprinted many times, in which he says many unfair and untrue things, slagged everybody off, including me. I took him to task over it later on, asking him, “Why did you say all those things? It wasn’t very nice.” He said, “Oh, I was just stoned out of my head.” That was his only apology, really. Unfortunately, that has become history now; it’s accepted as the Bible.”

George Martin, interview w/ Howard Massey for Musician. (February, 1999)

“If you look at interviews and stuff with John, from around about that time he was in Imagine [documentary] he kind of admits that he’s having problems with himself. So, well, the first thing you do when you’re having problems with yourself is you bitch about someone else. And the closest person was me…He had a real go at me. I personally think it was ‘cause he was trying to clear the decks for Yoko. He’s got a new love, he’s trying to say to her, “Look, baby, I love you. I hate those guys.” And I think—you also have to remember John was going through a lot of problems. And you know, as they say, people, when they’re going through problems, come out with that kind of stuff. You know that, we all know that. When you’re in a bad mood, the first thing you do is badmouth somebody else. You don’t want to badmouth yourself…Some of the times, he was having other sorts of problems…So—like most of what John said, I take it with a pinch of salt. I love him still. I don’t care what he said, you know. Even if he badmouths me, I still know that he was a great guy, and that he loved me.”

Paul McCartney

PLAYBOY: In his Playboy Interview, John said that was a song he didn't like and never could have written.

PAUL: Who knows what John liked? You know, John would say he didn't like one thing one minute and the next he might like it. I don't really know what he liked or didn't like, you know! It would depend on what mood he was in on a given day, really, what he would like.... I don't care; I liked it!

Paul McCartney: The Complete Playboy Interview, 1984 (thanks @tavolgisvist for the quote!)

[spectaculardistractions]

Thus one may sense a certain affinity between Boulting satire and a moralism which is negative in effect and which reinforces the use of working-class as social scapegoat. This is surely not deliberate, since the butt of the Boultings' satire is not uniquely, and not even primarily, the working-class, and it would be absurd to align them with those who begin by partially lamenting British slackness at all levels and then go on to urge more incentive for employers and a firmer line with employees. (The cure for Britain's troubles is, as usual, more stick for you and more carrot for me). And, of course, we can all identify with Ian Carmichael's enthusiasm, even if in real life we're as bloody-minded as the rest of the platoon, or union chapel, or chief clerks. The Boultings also insist that work-frustration comes as much from above as from below.

Raymond Durgnat, A Mirror for England

[albertserra]

Gay John Mills.................. 💆🏻‍♀️

[poppyflo2]

Liz Fraser and Ian Carmichael in I’m All Right Jack,1959

[moviesandmania]

I'M ALRIGHT JACK (1959) Reviews of classic Brit class comedy

I’M ALRIGHT JACK (1959) Reviews of classic Brit class comedy

‘Everybody loves Jack…’ I’m All Right Jack is a 1959 British comedy film about an upper-class dim-witted buffoon who inadvertently causes a national strike. Directed by John Boulting from a screenplay co-written with Frank Harvey and Alan Hackney, based on the latter’s 1958 novel Private Life. Produced by Roy Boulting. The film is a sequel to the Boultings’ 1956 film Private’s Progress with Ian…

[ozu-teapot]

Films Watched in November 2022

City of Fear | Irving Lerner | 1959

Suspect | John Boulting / Roy Boulting | 1960

The Criminal (AKA The Concrete Jungle) | Joseph Losey | 1960

The Sniper | Edward Dmytryk | 1952

Walk a Crooked Mile | Gordon Douglas | 1948

M | Joseph Losey | 1951

Little Red Monkey | Ken Hughes | 1955

Secret Ceremony | Joseph Losey | 1968

Dead Reckoning | John Cromwell | 1947

Stranger on the Third Floor | Boris Ingster | 1940

Walk East on Beacon! | Alfred L. Werker | 1952

The Face Behind the Mask | Robert Florey | 1941

Pushover | Richard Quine | 1954

In the Doghouse | Darcy Conyers | 1961

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt | Fritz Lang | 1956

The Sleeping Tiger | Joseph Losey | 1954

Kansas City Confidential | Phil Karlson | 1952

A Bullet Is Waiting | John Farrow | 1954

Here Before | Stacey Gregg | 2021

Know the Grass (Short) | Sophie Littman | 2021

Nightwatch | Ole Bornedal | 1997

Chicago Syndicate | Fred F. Sears | 1955

The Brothers Rico | Phil Karlson | 1957

Knock On Any Door | Nicholas Ray | 1949

Underworld Beauty | Seijun Suzuki | 1958

Tokyo Joe | Stuart Heisler | 1949

Storm Warning | Stuart Heisler | 1941

Sirocco | Curtis Bernhardt | 1951

The Asphalt Jungle | John Huston | 1950

Deported | Robert Siodmak | 1950

The Man Who Watched Trains Go By | Harold French | 1952

Larceny | George Sherman | 1948

Abandoned | Joseph M. Newman | 1949

The Harder They Fall | Mark Robson | 1956

Lady on a Train | Charles David | 1945

Bold = Top Ten

Some notes: Noirvember, and as usual I never go full Noir but I did watch mostly Noirs. Some good Noirs, some not so good Noirs, and a few “hmmm, I’m not really convinced these are Noirs” too. I mostly worked my way through the films I hadn’t watched from Indicator’s Noir box sets - with a couple of detours. Being very taken with Märta Torén in Sirocco led me to The Man Who Watched Trains Go By which I really enjoyed, and a Losey fest almost started but I got sidetracked...

[peterviney1]

The Family Way – review The 60s retrospective series gets to THE FAMILY WAY (linked). Premiered just before Christmas 1966, but really a 1967 film.

[tcm]

Hayley Mills: The “Every Girl” By Susan King

Hayley Mills wasn’t the typical child star. Unlike picture perfect Shirley Temple and Margaret O’Brien, the British actress was a bit of a scruff, a gangly, wild colt. Though cute, she certainly wasn’t adorable. But the daughter of Oscar-winning actor John Mills and author Mary Hayley Bell and baby sister of actress Juliet Mills definitely had the undefinable star quality. You couldn’t take your eyes off of her. And she had a naturalness and ease on screen. She was an “every girl.”

And that’s one of the reasons baby boomers fell madly in love with her in POLLYANNA (‘60), the first of six films she made for Walt Disney and for which she won the last Juvenile Oscar handed out by the Academy for her endearing turn as the eternally optimistic orphan who changes everyone’s lives. She just seemed like one of us. We all wanted to be her friend. And, as she got older, her young female fans wanted to be her; and boys wanted her to be their girlfriend. Even now, a smile lights across the faces of boomers whenever you mention her name.

In fact, when I recently posted on Facebook that I was watching her hit comedy THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS (‘66) for the first time since it was released, people came out of the woodwork expressing their love for the movie and Mills, who is now 74.

Before she became POLLYANNA, Mills made her first credited film debut in J. Lee Thompson’s acclaimed black-and-white thriller TIGER BAY (‘59). She plays a tomboy named Gillie, who lives with her aunt in the poor and racially diverse Tiger Bay district of Cardiff. Gillie witnesses the murder of a woman in her apartment building by her young Polish sailor boyfriend (Horst Buchholz) in a moment of rage. Though she initially fears for her life when Buchholz tracks her down, these two lost souls end up developing a strong bond. Her father John Mills plays the police superintendent trying to find him and is thwarted every step of the way by Gillie, who lies constantly to keep the detective away until the young man leaves the country.

Again, she gives such a natural “coy”-free performance, you feel that Thompson had plucked a young ruffian off the streets of Tiger Bay to play Gillie. The first time I saw Mills on screen was in 1961 in one of her biggest hits for the Disney studio THE PARENT TRAP, a trippy comedy about twin sisters who meet at summer camp after their divorced parents (Maureen O’Hara and Brian Keith) had divvied them up as babies when the marriage ended. (One has to admit in this day and age, it’s more than a bit creepy and cruel that parents would do something like this.) The twins decide to play a trick on their parents, while plotting a way to get them back together, by switching places after summer camp.

Not only did the movie prove Mills could handle comedy with great aplomb, THE PARENT TRAP also turned Mills into a singing star. Not that she could really sing, but Richard and Robert Sherman penned Mills the catchy “Let’s Get Together” which became a hit tune.

Her next film for Disney IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS (‘62), an adventure based on a Jules Verne story, was the weakest of her Disney films. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for her follow-up movie SUMMER MAGIC (1963), a nostalgic comedy with the Sherman brothers once again supplying the songs. She was 17 when she made THE MOON-SPINNERS (‘64), a mystery thriller set in Crete based on a Mary Stewart best-seller. This time around, she is paired with the handsome British actor Peter McEnery as her love interest. Every girl in the audience also wanted McEnery as their love interest. Reviews were decidedly mixed, but Bosley Crowther in the New York Times stated the actress was growing up, noting “the ripening attractiveness” of Mills.

Mills ended her time with Disney with the blockbuster That Darn Cat! (‘65), an entertaining comedy about a mischievous Siamese cat named DC owned by Mills that ends up helping the FBI in solving a robbery and kidnapping. While she was under contract, Mills also made films in England including the lauded WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND (‘61) based on her mother’s 1959 novel of the same name. Directed by Bryan Forbes, the family film revolves around three farm children who find a bearded fugitive (Alan Bates) in their barn. Because he utters “Jesus Christ” when he is found, the three believe he really is Jesus. Mills received a BAFTA nomination for her charming performance.

Her first post-Disney film after GYPSY GIRL (’66) was the heavenly comedy THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS (‘66) directed by Ida Lupino. I loved it when I first saw it and adored it when I revisited it recently. Mills and June Harding play the best of friends at a Catholic girls’ school and in between studying get into all sorts of trouble much to the chagrin of the Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell). Attending Catholic girls’ school for nine years, there’s little wonder TROUBLE WITH ANGELS is my favorite Mills film. TROUBLE WITH ANGELS also would be the last Mills film I would see in a movie theater.

THE FAMILY WAY (‘66), was her first grown-up role and marked her first nude scene. Not only that, Mills created a scandal when she had a romance with the film’s director Roy Boulting, who not only had children, but he was nearly 33 years older than Mills. The two would marry for six years in the 1970s and a have son, Crispian. Most of her films during that time certainly weren’t for her young fans and frankly weren’t very good.

Mills took a six-year hiatus and returned in the acclaimed 1981 miniseries The Flame Trees of Thika which aired on PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre. She’s been going strong ever since, even touring Australia in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I. Mills returned to the Disney fold doing several projects including the Disney Channel movie THE PARENT TRAP II (‘86), for which I got to interview her in person, and the Disney Channel film BACK HOME (‘89), for which I interviewed her for the Los Angeles Times.

I asked her—and yes, she was charming—in 1990 if it was different being a child star in Hollywood versus being one in England. “Quite different,” she noted. “As far as my own life was concerned going over to America was a most wonderful holiday. It was like going to Disneyland. America was a playground, and everything was larger than life. The sun was always shining, and the cars were always clean and shiny, and everyone said, ‘You’re welcome.’ It was rows and rows of comics, ice cream sundaes and endless channels on the TV. I was very well looked after. All I was expected to do was learn my lines and get on the set. Of course, when I came back to England I came back to reality and had to go to board school and behave myself!”

[iplpredictiont20]

IPL 2021: 3 Teams that can give a tough fight to CSK in the tournament

They've qualified for the playoffs on 10 events from a possible 11.  The only time that they did not qualify was past year, revealing how dominant they've been.  The lack of important players and how the championship was held at the UAE appeared to have influenced them.  But, their group is a lot better than a seventh-place finish along with also a return on India will be a massive benefit for MS Dhoni's team.

Together with Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult and Nathan Coulter-Nile because their key seamers, they've a well-rounded speed assault.  Adam Milne is also a superb backup and besides Boult, who's much more of a new-ball expert, they've three gun bowlers who can bowl in any point.  Rahul Chahar and Krunal Pandya match each other very well throughout the middle overs since Pandya keeps things tight while Chahar is assaulting and selects up wickets. Following is a glance at 3 groups that may provide the Super Kings a difficult fight for your IPL name:1.    

No surprises !  Mumbai Indians has become the most prosperous group in IPL history together with five names and all of these have come because 2013, their dominance is not there for all to see.  Having won back names, they will now wish to break records and win an unparalleled hat-trick of IPL names. RR has been very poor because they won the name in 2008 and have fought to reach those peaks.  They have not even finished in the top two since and have qualified to the playoffs on just three occasions.  The Rajasthan-based team finished eighth on the points table and it was obvious that something needed to change. They have a lot of big-name Indian batsmen like Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant, as we all know, using a solid Indian center is quite important.   They've batsmen for every sort of scenario right from managing collapses to being competitive from the very first chunk.

The likes of Moeen Ali and Krishnappa Gowtham are just likely to strengthen the group, along with the yield of Suresh Raina will probably be a huge boost for their batting order, which failed to provide the products last year.  Overall, CSK have a fairly good group, and you can expect them to struggle for the name.  But, they will clearly have stiff competition to the decoration. They've appointed Sanju Samson as captain and roped in Kumar Sangakkara among the main guys behind the scenes.  They had a Excellent auction and was able to buy the likes of Chris Morris, Shivam Dube and Mustafizur Rahman.  Their beginning XI could have batting thickness till No.9 and as many as nine bowling choices.  Having such a staff is very vital in T20s since it gives one a lot of flexibility when required. Delhi Capitals attained their first-ever last last year and has shown great signs of progress under Shreyas Iyer and Ricky Ponting during the previous few seasons.  Given that their group is quite similar to that which they had a year ago, there's absolutely no good reason for their performances to fall off. An opening mixture of Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler has the capacity to destroy any bowling attack and they have a strong Indian middle sequence of Sanju Samson, Shivam Dube, Riyan Parag and Rahul Tewatia.  Chris Morris and Jofra Archer aren't two of their greatest bowlers in the league, but they're also powerful with the bat in hand as finishers.  Their Indian bowling based on Shreyas Gopal, Kartik Tyagi and Chetan Sakariya has excellent potential also.

Marcus Stoinis provides balance to the group as their No.6 while additionally bowling a few overs.  Overall, their staff looks very great on paper and the only problem they may face is if their South African quick bowling duo may not be accessible for the first two or three weeks because of international obligations. Chennai Super Kings is that the second-most successful IPL group of time, having raised the trophy on three occasions.  After winning the title in 2010 and 2011, they proceeded to a seven-year prize burial prior to winning it in their recovery season, 2018.

Quinton de Kock and Rohit Sharma really are among the greatest opening combinations from the match, and they have a superb copy in the kind of Chris Lynn, that may want to fill in to the Southern African keeper when he's inaccessible during the first two or three weeks.  Their midst purchase of Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Kieron Pollard along with the Pandya brothers is arguably the most damaging in the championship.  Three of the batsmen were one of the best seven run-scorers last year and all three of them scored at over 140 per 100 balls.

[mad-prophet-of-the-airwaves]

Twisted Nerve (1968, Roy Boulting, UK)

[sticky-wicket-urn]

IPL Round Up: Week 1

Toby Reynolds, 18/04/2021

It is one week into the start of the IPL and to everyone’s surprise, Mumbai Indians are not top! RCB have taken the tournament by storm, winning three from three under Virat Kohli’s leadership. At the other end of the table, Sunrises Hyderabad are propping up the table without a win. Although they have played two of the top sides, pundits and fans expected a much better start for Hydrabad.

Royal Challengers Bangalore

RCB have always had a star-studded side but this seems to be the year that it has finally come together. Kohli has moved to the top of the order to replace Aaron Finch, allowing Maxwell to slip in at number four. Maxwell went all of last season without scoring a fifty or hitting any sixes. This season everything seems to have clicked for him and he has returned to the player we know him to be. Maxwell is the leading run scorer with 176 runs at an average of almost 60 with a strike rate of 150. He has been ably assisted by AB de Villiers, who has come in towards the end of the innings and really excelled with a strike rate of 190! He has played two match winning performances so far: taking RCB right to the death against Mumbai and hit 76 against KKR today.

RCB have also been helped on the bowling front by leading wicket taker Harshal Patel and New Zealand pace man Kyle Jamieson. Patel took five in the first match and has continued his form since. Jamieson has been more expensive than Patel but has also chipped in with some handy runs down the order. RCB also have a threatening spin trio of Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed and  Yuzvendra Chahal. All have had impacts on the matches but none with a match winning performance. As the tournament continues, I expect them to take more wickets and become more dangerous with the balls due to the pitches wearing.

Delhi Capitals

Last years runners up have had a varied start to season with a high scoring win and tight loss. They have an Indian packed batting line up with fifties for Dhawan, Shaw and Pant so far and have relied on Woakes in the first match and Rabada in the second to take wickets alongside opening bowler Avesh Khan. Surprise package of last season, Anrich Nortje is yet to play due to Woakes’ performances in the first matches while Nortje was playing for South Africa. It is likely he will come in for Tom Curran or Steve Smith as the tournament progresses. Curran has struggled to make a good impact on the tournament so far, being hit by Chris Morris to lose the match against Rajasthan and Smith can interchange with Indian vice captain Ajinkya Rahane as an anchor at number three.

Delhi will be hoping for their top order too keep making runs and converting their fifties into large scores and hopefully hundreds. Aussie all rounder, Marcus Stoinis has failed to score many runs yet and was hit for 15 in his one over of the tournament but todays innings bodes well as he guided Delhi to what turned out to be an easy chase after Dhawan batted very impressively for his 92.

Mumbai Indians

Rohit Sharma’s side were heavy favourites before the tournament started and since their first match against RCB have shown why. They lost a tight first match but have since shown they can hold their nerve against KKR and Sunrises in two matches that went right down to the wire. Rahul Chahar and Krunal Pandya have used the spinning wickets of Chennai well and are leading the attack well with Bumrah and Boult dominating at the death with perfect execution of their yorkers. 

Their three matches have been low scorers with no side passing 160 yet which hasn’t allowed for their long batting line up to show off its skill. Suryakumar Yadav has continued his form from 2020 and leads their side in runs scored and is the only player in their squad to pass fifty. The return of Quinton de Kock seems to have made their batting line up more rounded, even after Lynn scored 49 in their season opener but Pollard and Hardik Pandya have not managed to find their form from the last few seasons as finishers.

Chennai Super Kings

CSK are surprisingly high on this table in my opinion (even if it due to Net Run Rate). They have a very mixed squad. It is full of all rounders with Bravo and Thakur down at numbers nine and ten, but their average age is extraordinarily high. They have six players over the age of 35 and half of their squad over 30. Dhoni seemed to have lost it a bit last year in the UAE and hasn’t found the form he had in the early years of the tournament. 

Sam Curran and Moeen Ali are the two English players in the squad and have both been in fine form so far. Moeen Ali has shown why he was wasted sitting on the RCB bench over the past few years. He is their top scorer after two matches and is striking at 150, while Sam Curran is coming in lower down the order but still smashing the ball all round the park. He has a strike rate over 200 and won the battle against his older brother in the first match, taking him for over 20 in an over.

CSK failed to win the first match after a slow start meant they put up a score of 188, well below par and allowed the Delhi Capitals to chase it down with eight balls spare. In the second match, Deepak Chahar tore through the Punjab Kings top order taking 4-13 and limiting Punjab to 106 before they chased it down in 15 overs.

Rajasthan Royals

The English contingent of the IPL have had two ok first games. They have heavily relied on captain Sanju Samson in the first match, who blasted his third IPL century and was a few metres away from hitting a six off the final ball and carrying his side home to victory against Punjab Kings. The main controversy of this match was that Samson turned down a single off the penultimate ball to put Chris Morris on strike needing four to win. Morris was visibly angry to be sent back by his captain but in my opinion, Samson was more likely to hit a boundary (either the six needed to win or a four to take it to a super over) than his South African counterpart. The one criticism I have would be that Samson could have possibly come back for two and sacrificed Morris at the non-strikers end but would have risked running himself out.

Morris then showed why he Samson should have taken the single in the Royals second match, bludgeoning 36 from 18 after David Miller fell for 62. After the match, Morris said he knew his role was to slog at the end and was happy to do it for the team. 

The biggest new for Rajasthan was that Ben Stokes would be out for three months and the rest of the tournament due to a fractured finger in the first match. This allows fellow Englishman Jos Buttler to slide up to the top of the order and Miller to take his place in the middle order. Buttler had an outstanding tournament a few years ago after he moved to the top of the order for Rajasthan and dominated so it is not all bad news for Royals fans.

Kolkata Knight Riders

Before the tournament, I predicted KKR would just about make the cut for the playoffs due to Eoin Morgan’s captaincy and their world class overseas players. This hasn’t been the case yet. Morgan has failed to fire with the bat; Russel, one of the most devastating batsmen ever in both T20 cricket and the IPL, has been more use with the ball; and both Shakib and Cummins haven’t made the biggest impact yet. I am sure this will soon change though. 

For the first three matches, KKR have relied on their home grown talent at the top of the order to score their runs. Rana, Gill and Tripathi have all made runs at a good rate but KKR have failed to push on from being in good positions in matches with a lack of quick runs down the order. Against Mumbai, “DreRus” took 5-15 from two to slow Mumbai in the final few overs. However, he then struggled with the bat and scored a tentative 9 from 15 as KKR fell 10 runs short.

KKR have failed to win the tight matches so far which seems to be due to a lack of finishing ability from the middle order, if they can fix this problem (and with Morgan as captain, I am sure they can) then I think they have a good chance of finishing in the top four.

Punjab Kings

Even with KL “King Legend” Rahul averaging over 70 at 150, Punjab Kings (formerly King’s XI Punjab) have struggled so far this year. They have just lost to Dehli Capitals after setting an impressive 195 to win but their inexperienced bowling line up failed to defend it. Rahul and Agrawal put on 122 with Agrawal smashing 69 from 36, while his partner crawled along to 61 off 51 before Hooda and Shahrukh Khan came in to blast the ball round at the end. 

This was the second high scoring match they have been apart of. They have a strong and experienced top order but have a younger and less experienced bowling line up and almost no tail a Richardson bats at number seven. Arshdeep Singh is only 22 and this is both Meredith and Richardson’s first seasons in the IPL. Shami is their only seam bowler over 25, but is backed up by two experience spinners. You could see this inexperience in the match vs Delhi as Dhawan took the game away from Punjab. As the tournament progresses, it will be interesting to see how the younger players will adapt to conditions and deal with an increase in pressure and if Punjab try to lengthen their batting lineup.

Sunrises Hyderabad

David Warner’s side are sat at the bottom of the table without a win. They have lost three close matches. With three players in the top 11 for runs scorers so far, you might expect such a strong squad to be further up the table, but the lack of power hitters down the order seems to be catching up with Sunrises. Bairstow slotted in at number four in the first matches to accommodate for Saha up the top and performed well but struggled to stay at the crease during the key moments. He was caught slogging across the line when Hyderabad were in a commanding position, causing a batting collapse and loss against KKR and has since moved back up to opening.

Hyderabad have been changing their team a huge amount so far during the IPL. They have played six overseas players, as well as having Kane Williamson on the sideline. Hyderabad were often selected as the side most likely to steal the crown from Mumbai before the season started but unless they can find some finishers, it seems unlikely that this will happen.

Rashid Khan, as usual, has been performing very well. He has four wickets with an economy rate of 5.33. He hasn’t blown any teams away yet, but arguably more importantly, his economy is under six, building pressure and helping others in the side take wickets. If he can keep this up, it is likely Hyderabad will continue restricting oppositions to low totals.

Predictions

From the first week it is always hard to tell how the season will progress. I think it is likely that Mumbai, RCB and Delhi will progress to the knock-out stages but the fourth place is up for grabs. Right now I think I would go for KKR, just because they haven’t hit their heights yet and I can see them start winning matches they shouldn’t if Morgan and Russell get into form.

[sab-teraa]

• if i was finch, i would have pulled a n*ymar and just cried loool  • loooool pollard is that tall???? he didnt even need to do much of a jump to take that catch #goals  • ABs wink to shivam after hitting boult for a six LOOOOOOL this is how confident i aspire to be with my talents 

• anyway my athlete mce gets of the mark with a 4. missed you ishan 😚x

• I have class rn and I’m wasting my time watching this team perish befor me 😔

• I would keep ishan and tiwari, and drop one of the p*ndya brothers (tbh, k*unal)

• I WANNA WIN BUT I FEEL BAD FOR ZAMPS SHAMMEEE BRO UGH MAN

•I LOVE THIS FUCKING GAME

• cricket commentators are so funny 😂😂😂😂😂 they are my absolute fave

•tbh I don’t think it’s MI night. Idk. I’m hoping for a repeat of last night but I don’t think it’s gonna happen

• anyway it is Ishans night! Good for him! He deserves it!

• ro bhai looks like he is going through the most LOL

• my heart is beating so fucking fast I cannot deal!

• ugh no 😔!

• I’m to STRESSED OUT FOR A SUPEROVER LIKE INCANNOT DEAL STAPH

• Ik Bumrah is the best in the world but ahhhh tonight has been his worse night ever

• they are really going with h*rdik. This has to be a joke. Like pls. Honestly h*dik prove me wrong bro. Bc it’s a no for me

• I told you h*rdik was gonna eff up 💀 (with all due respect, today was just not his day)

• and as much as I admire and respect Bumrah, i don’t think he is gonna save this one

• my heart is beating so fast I cannot

• YOU KNOW WHAT. YOU WIN SOME. YOU LOSE SOME. AND MY TEAM FOUGHT HARD AND IM PROUD OF THEM NO MATTER THE RESULT 💙💛🤍💙💛🤍💙💛🤍💙💛🤍💙💛🤍💙💛🤍💙💛🤍💙💛🤍💙💛🤍

[spectaculardistractions]

Some years then passed before the Boultings found two middle ways between a little too much good will and a little too much ill will. I'm All Right Jack (1959) is scathing, but, helped by its humour, more commonsensical. It was resented by the Left, though its anti-union bias has to be balanced by (a) the context of the series, which lambasted everybody in turn, (b) an opening sequence raking industrial obsolescence and dishonest salesmen, (c) two rascally bosses (Richard Attenborough, Dennis Price) and (d) an epilogue in which a judge becomes as unjust as the unions. Still, the bosses smack of broad caricature, and are outright crooks, as if the Boultings certainly don't trust the capitalist classes but don't quite know what to satirize seriously about them.

Raymond Durgnat, A Mirror for England